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Classic Mysteries—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, May 2020

February 1981 Had Some High Quality UFO Cases

by: Rick Hilberg

The years 1980 and 1981 were actually quite active ones as far as high quality UFO cases were concerned. In fact, these two years actually contained more quality cases than did 1973 and 1974 with its massive amounts of media attention. Somehow or other, by 1980 the news media just about ignored cases that would have made headlines less than ten years before. No matter, we were there armed with our clipping service subscription to preserve these cases that I will no doubt share with you in the months to come. Here are two outstanding reports from that active February:

2/5/81 "Rumbling" Object in Pennsylvania

At 7:00 p.m. that evening nine people gathered at a farmhouse just outside of Duncannon, Pennsylvania had an experience with a UFO that they wouldn't soon forget.

"I heard it coming," said Dan Barrick, one of the residents of the modest two family house. "The rumbling noise grew louder, and I thought for a while that the furnace was on fire."

He and his son, Butch, rushed to the kitchen door to witness a huge object flying majestically over the house. "It was shaped like a boomerang and had at least five lights on the back and several more on the front," Mr. Barrick related. "It was three to four times as big as any jet plane I've ever seen, and it was up pretty high."

Barrick told his son to tell the others what was going on, and to bring them all outside to have a good look at the strange thing.

By the time the others made it outside, the object had already passed over the house and could only be seen from its rear. Said Jimmy Roush, "The thing looked like a flying saucer. It was egg-shaped with at least three lights on the back. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't a plane or helicopter."

The witness all agreed that it was three to four times the size of a jet airliner and was in sight for about 15 to 20 minutes before it was lost to sight behind Cove Mountain in the distance. They all agreed that it moved much more slowly than a conventional jet aircraft.

2/7/81 Classic "Flying Saucer" Lands in California

Cindy Gaffney, of Richmond District, California, was awakened at about 4:00 a.m. that morning by "a deep, loud humming noise." She was quickly able to discern that its source was outside, and decided to wake her husband so they could both check out just what was going on.

While Mr. Gaffney was trying in vain to find his eyeglasses (he was quite nearsighted), Mrs. Gaffney looked out the window of their second floor bedroom and saw a strange object over their neighbor's cemented back yard.

"It was four feet high, approximately eight or ten feet long," she said. "It looked like coffee saucers, two of them, upside down and next to each other, the classic flying saucer shape.

"It was white and had a very slight fluorescent glow. No windows, no wheels, no gizmos, no nothing. Just a plain white glowing saucer."

She said that the UFO landed in the neighbor's yard and remained on the ground for about ten minutes, when it suddenly took off as Mrs. Gaffney turned on the lights in their attached garage in an attempt to wake up her brother.

Although Mr. Gaffney was unable to find his glasses, he did state that he saw the object's general outline and heard the deep humming noise.

The two witnesses investigated the landing area and were excited to find a round, whitish mark on the cemented patio, and speculated that it was caused by the landing of the UFO.

However, some hours later after he came home from work, the neighbor said that the spot in question was the result of some rose bushes in a large amount of soil being readied for planting, and said that that area had always been whiter than the rest of the cement as a result.

However, even without any material evidence, this landing report is indeed a worthwhile case.